AI in Marketing Content
A couple weeks ago, a writer we know showed us some copy she’d created for an award entry featuring a customer of her client whom she did not know well. We read it and, though we didn’t want to insult the writer, we broke down and admitted that we thought the entry was “kind of boring.” It had all the facts, but the copy had no premise, no thesis, and nothing that would grab judges’ attention and make them pay attention to her entry more than others. It was adequate. She actually laughed and admitted that she’d been uninspired and had resorted to using ChatGPT to create the copy. Putting our heads together, we poured over everything the person being entered for the award had said about her position and we came up with a theme. Here was a person who worked behind the scenes, but the company couldn’t do the job without her. She was indispensable. We wove that idea through the award entry. While the writer doesn’t yet know the results of the award, she does know that this thesis thrilled the customer and her client. She also knows that copy generated by ChatGPT is easy to spot and, as marketing copy, isn’t effective.
Recent statistics show that 70% of marketers are using or have used generative AI to create headlines and copy. And yet few, if any, have corporate guidelines on how and when such content should be used. This is scary.
We recently asked ChatGPT to generate a bio for an author we know well. The bio came back sounding totally authoritative – and it was about 20% wrong! So research done by AI is very subject to errors that have been made by others online. Even more important, copy created by generative AI is not truly marketing copy. It’s, at best, editorial. But true marketing copy is generated with a subtle knowledge of the brand promise and message, the position of the company/brand in the market, the actions you want the reader to take, and much more. By the time you’ve entered all these subtleties into the AI engine in hopes of getting a decent result, it would be cheaper and faster to write it yourself. Or ask a professional.
Will AI develop to the point that it sounds original and creative? Possibly. But it’s not there yet. User beware!
